Life Orientation is a waste of time

MANAGING finances is not a course that is taught, but it’s important for all students to learn.

Once students graduate, they need to make smart choices about their money if they want to become financially secure.

I read recently about a school abroad that decided the best way for students to learn about finances is to open a bank at the school.

This is the first ever real bank to open at a high school in order to teach pupils financial literacy.

According to a report issued by the World Bank in 2014, South Africans were the biggest borrowers in the world.

Instead of teaching our children financial literacy, like the above mentioned school has done, our children are being taught ‘Life Orientation’.

What will they gain from this?

Because it isn’t about about how to fill in tax returns or how to chose the right field of study when applying to university.

Life Orientation is a ‘cop out’ subject that does not have much value to a pupils overall training in the school environment.

I am not a teacher, but if Life Orientation is the holistic study of the self, the self in society, and an opportunity to develop the emotional side of young people, then why do we have 30 girls pregnant at Masakhane High School?

Why do we have fatal stabbings at Qakwini High?

And drug abuse and dealing at local ‘suburban’ schools?

To what extent does a school subject impact on society?

And does Life Orientation really have the impact that it was supposed to have?

TWENTY SOMETHING